Sometimes I come across a truly unique album, unlike anything that has yet crossed my path. Latvian technical/progressive death Metal Ygodeh's, 'The Experiment Interrupted' is such an album.

Founded after the scrapping of his previous symphonic Metal band Disease, by Pavel 'Piton' Stepanov in 2009, this is the follow up to the 2010 release 'Dawn Of The Technological Singularity'.

Ygodeh's sound is Innovative and interesting, going way beyond what you might expect, the composition of the tracks are highly complex and experimental, as the title suggests and at times are quite mesmerising, this is largely due to the extensive use of highly stylised symphonic elements, causing the tracks to flow naturally and seamlessly but at the same time being highly unpredictable and unique.

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The core of the band is completed by vocalist/ lyricist Victor 'Feka' Rinkevich (ex-SvinKTR) and although his vocals were reasonably comprehensible I actually didn't listen to the lyrical content, preferring to concentrate on the vocal effect and how they added to the overall composition, there is a huge amount going on at any given time and many of the screams and growls having a highly dramatic edge.

After an extended string based intro, opening track 'To Down' expands into orchestrated strings mixed with blackened drum beats, with keyboards that have an industrial influence and with some intense heavy elements coming from the vocal and guitar combination.

A keyboard generated, industrial influenced opener on 'From On High' opens out to intense drum and harsh vocal segments, sandwiched with lighter symphonic segments, this gives a dark intense feel and I like the way the vocals heavily dominate this track.

'Groove's Night' as the title suggests, has a heavy groove running through but with a strong progressive sound that has a slight jazz influence and some excellent guitar work, no one could describe this as a boring album, every track is different, the common denominator being the impressive, brutal vocals that tie the tracks together.

'Fragment 1', the first of two short instrumentals, is a blend of simple guitar notes mixed with orchestration that rise to a crescendo towards the latter part and then fall away again.

Beautifully bleak 'Eternal Immortal' has a dark doom laden symphonic opener reappearing throughout the track, which becomes more intense with the addition of vocals, whilst maintaining the dark doom filled aspect. The guitar work midway has an interesting tortured feel to the sound from a subtle distortion which has been added to it and which gives even more atmosphere.

Sinister chugging riffs and deep brutal growls form the core of 'Fallen's', the darkest and heaviest track of the album, but it goes beyond this with the addition of more cleverly interposed symphonic elements. On 'Trance Orchestra' violins open, becoming heavily dosed with more string led symphonic elements across the track which balances well with the harsh vocal growl.

Ending with 'Fragment 2', the second instrumental, where simple reflective guitars are overlaid with melancholic orchestrations; beautifully effective.

'The Experiment Interrupted' is certainly an album for anyone looking for a different approach to Extreme Metal - a stunning listen.